DOWNLOADS: (464)

PLAYS: (6960)

Embed

From this Friday's Real Time, Bill Maher told his audience that he and his staff think they've found the "smoking gun" that proves the IRS had unfairly targeted the tea partiers who are upset about having to wait to get their 501(c)(4) status approved.

DOWNLOADS: (540)

PLAYS: (6874)

Embed

Bill Maher wound up his New Rules segment on this Friday evening's Real Time by going after today's crop of Ayn Rand worshiping Libertarians in a rant where Maher basically said he didn't leave Libertarianism, it left him. As he noted, even though he's expressed support for the philosophy in the past, it was because it "meant he didn't want big government my bedroom, or my medicine chest and especially not on the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed."

I'm sure he'll have all of the Ron and Rand Paul supporters mad at him after he lumped them in with their fellow Ayn Rand fan, Paul Ryan, for basically taking the movement and turning it into a “creepy obsession with free market capitalism.”

Maher thinks the movement has basically lost its collective mind these days, and I would argue you could say the same for the Republican party as well, which as a whole has adopted these very same "principles" if you want to be generous enough to call them that.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (185)

PLAYS: (1358)

Embed

If you've got HBO and did not get a chance to watch their documentary, The Loving Story this week, it reairs in May. In the wake of the two hearings by the Supreme Court on gay marriage, the film serves as a stark reminder for how we're likely to be viewed by future generations for the rhetoric and animosity we're seeing to same-sex couples being allowed to be married today.

Here's more on the documentary from Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones: "The Loving Story": How an Interracial Couple Changed a Nation:

The most striking thing about Mildred and Richard Loving is that they never wanted to be known. They didn't want to change history or face down racism. They just wanted to come home to Virginia to be near their families. The Lovings weren't radicals. They were just two people in love—one of them a taciturn white guy described by one of their lawyers as a "redneck," the other a sweet, soft-spoken young woman of black and American Indian ancestry.

When the The Loving Story makes its national debut on HBO on Valentine's Day, it will be the first time many Americans have met this couple. They are the namesake of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down the anti-miscegenation laws still on the books in 16 states some 13 years after school segregation was deemed unconstitutional. These laws constituted one of the last formal vestiges of the Jim Crow era, and this film shows for the first time what it took to bring them down.

Even as they changed America, the Lovings were never a household name. After getting married in Washington, DC, in June 1958, they simply returned to their home in Central Point, Virginia. Mildred was unaware, she said, of her state's "Racial Integrity Act," a 1924 law forbidding interracial marriage—although she later added that she thought her husband knew about it but didn't figure they'd be persecuted.

Just over a month after the Lovings' homecoming, police raided their place at 2 a.m., arrested the couple, and threw them in jail. Leon Bazile, a judge for the Caroline County Circuit Court, convicted them on felony charges. "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents," the judge wrote. "The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." Read on...

Mediaite had something interesting posted on the same topic, which is a quiz to see if readers can tell the difference between actual anti-interracial and anti-gay marriage quotes. As they noted:

Whether it’s condemning homosexuality as “unnatural” and “immoral,” or comparing gay relationships to “armed robbery” and “marrying your dog,” or simply “thumping the Bible” as the primary means to argument, many of the opponents of same-sex marriage sound an awful lot like those who so vocally opposed miscegenation, the marriage between races.

DOWNLOADS: (173)

PLAYS: (958)

Embed

Bill Maher let his audience know what he thought of the Catholic church just making up their own sets of "new rules" over the years during his New Rules segment on Real Time this Friday evening.

DOWNLOADS: (187)

PLAYS: (831)

Embed

From this Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: Assange urges leak of US drone rules:

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange has urged US officials to leak secret documents on drone strikes, saying that the broad discretion to kill citizens shows a "collapse" in the American system.

Assange, who has angered US officials by releasing thousands of secret memos, used a rare US television appearance to condemn President Barack Obama's controversial green light to kill American citizens who conspire with al-Qaeda.

"I can't see a greater collapse when the executive can kill its own citizens arbitrarily, at will, in secret, without any of the decision-making becoming public," Assange told the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher.

"That's why we need organisations like WikiLeaks. I encourage anyone in the White House who has access to those rules and procedures, work them on over to us. We'll keep you secret and reveal it to the public."

Assange spoke to host Bill Maher, a supporter of WikiLeaks, by video link from Ecuador's embassy in London, where he has been holed up since June to avoid extradition to Sweden. Britain has refused him safe passage to Ecuador. Read on...

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (738)

PLAYS: (13049)

Embed

Anyone who is a regular reader of this site is probably already familiar with Donald Trump's threat to sue Bill Maher over his joke where he asked flame thrower and birther for proof that he was not the result of his mother having sex with an orangutan. Well, now that Trump followed through on his threat, Maher responded during his New Rules segment on HBO this Friday evening, and let's just say, the results weren't pretty for Trump.

Maher took Trump apart and opened up the segment with this:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (550)

PLAYS: (6948)

Embed

After discussing Sarah Palin's departure from Fox "news" right after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told his party that they need to "stop being the stupid party," Real Time's Bill Maher reminded his audience during his New Rules segment that people like Palin always seem to land on their feet, like her cohort who they finally fired, Glenn Beck. And as Maher noted, there's really only one thing that people like Palin, or Beck or Limbaugh care about -- and that's separating the rubes who take them seriously from their money.

And as long as that's the case, they're going to be causing problems for Republicans winning elections. These carnival barkers might not have much influence in national races, but they're doing their best to do real damage when it comes to any sane Republicans being able to make it through a primary race.

Here's more from Raw Story: Maher: ‘Con men’ like Beck and Limbaugh ‘don’t care about winning elections,’ just making money:

Maher then mentioned Glenn Beck, who was also fired by Fox News. “But then he saw an open window: the internet. Who needs Fox News when he could take his patented brand of apocalyptic race-baiting directly to the fans?”

Maher said that “con men” like Beck and Rush Limbaugh are why the GOP is in “dire straits. They don’t care about winning elections. They care about separating rubes from their money.”

After arguing that they have found a way to profit from making boogie monsters out of organizations like Planned Parenthood or advocates for immigrant and LGBT rights, he said. “They don’t want a majority. They want a mailing list,” he said.

“Why not just hogtie your audience and steal their disability checks?” he went on.

“I don’t know why being a Republican means needing to have your faith recharged five times a day like Dick Cheney’s heart, because there’s no comparable industry on the left, dedicated to separating liberals from their cash. I mean, unless you count Whole Foods.”

DOWNLOADS: (660)

PLAYS: (5598)

Embed

In his New Rules segment this Friday, Bill Maher took a shot at all of the "gun nuts" out there who are so worried about their 2nd Amendment rights being stripped away, but who, along with a lot of liberals, haven't said anything about the National Defense Authorization Act quietly being passed by Congress, which actually is a threat to our civil liberties in this country.

Maher's right that this is a bi-partisan political problem, but I think the bigger problem with the complacency is that we've got a corporate media out there which for the most part is completely ignoring the problem. It's a shame we'll see it discussed on a comedy show like his but ignored on the "news."

DOWNLOADS: (198)

PLAYS: (2156)

Embed

Attention junkie Donald Trump is doing his best to take advantage of Bill Maher poking fun at him on Jay Leno's show this week, where he decided to one-up Trump's birtherism with President Obama. Sean Hannity actually had this clown on for the better half of his show Thursday evening and Trump repeated some of the same remarks he made on Extra the previous day: Trump will ‘probably sue’ Maher after proving mother didn’t have sex with orangutan:

Real estate mogul Donald Trump is threatening sue HBO comedian Bill Maher over a bet over whether the billionaire’s mother had sex with an orangutan.

During an interview with NBC’s Jay Leno earlier this week, Maher had mocked Trump’s absurd offer of $5 million if President Barack Obama could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Maher said that he would donate $5 million to the “Hair Club for Men” or “Institute for Incorrigible Douchebaggery” if Trump produced evidence to counter the claim that he “had been the spawn of this mother having sex with an orangutan.”

“The other night on Jay Leno’s show, he made an absolute offer, I made an absolute acceptance,” Trump explained to Extra on Wednesday. “I sent him documentation and he owes me $5 million, which I’m going to give to charity.”

Trump repeated his threat to sue Maher and also told Hannity that HBO should fire the comedian immediately for insulting him:

Hannity said there would be far more outrage if anyone but Trump had been the target of Maher’s barbs. Trump called Maher “insulting” and said he was shocked by the “horrible things” Maher was saying about his parents. He sent a letter directly to Maher with his birth certificate demanding the five million dollars, which he joked that Maher may or may not have. There has been some question over whether Maher would be legally obligated to pay up, but Trump assured Hannity that his lawyer is confident of their case.

But on the subject of the double standard, Trump agreed that there is only minimal outrage because the insults were directed at him. He told Hannity that if he ever said anything similar about Obama, “you would be fired immediately.” He said that more people should be outraged about Maher’s statements, bragging that his lawyer won him five million dollars before and he’ll do it again.

Apparently the entire concept of comedy and satire is lost on these two. You've got to give it to both of them for having that feigned victimhood routine down pat, though. Heaven forbid that mean old comedian was picking on Trump. It's not like he's ever said anything hateful or disrespectful to deserve it!

Hannity was also pushing him about whether he's going to run for president again and he didn't rule it out, so I guess we've got an early scoop: The next Republican presidential primary is going to be just as big of a clown show as the last one.

Here's Maher on Leno's show earlier this week for anyone that missed it.

DOWNLOADS: (220)

PLAYS: (2450)

Embed

DOWNLOADS: (813)

PLAYS: (12299)

Embed

Bill Maher took a few shots at those coveted "undecided voters" that politicians are still vying for and that the media constantly puts on a pedestal, and voiced his disdain for having been subjected to one too many of these so-called "focus groups" with a bunch of “nincompoops" who have trouble focusing.

As he noted, if he wanted to watch a bunch of “ignorant jackasses bullsh*tting about the election,” he'd just turn on Fox & Friends. He also got shots in on the Octomom, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump along the way.

I agree with him on being tired of the media and their focus groups and asking these people what they think. They ought to be doing a better job actually educating voters on the issues, but that would distract from their time continually pushing their he said/she said fake balance spots where the "truth" doesn't seem to matter much.